Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens

JRS had several doctrinal influences in his belief system (as do pretty much everyone!) Folks are focusing on the Latter Rain Movement. But he was strongly influenced by Aimee Semple McPherson as well. His family moved to L.A. for his father to study in her College (reminescent of Shiloh University) to become a better minister. JRS as a child sat at Sister Aimee's feet and was great drawn to her charisma, preaching style, laying on of hands, etc. But he didn't become Four Square. His brother-in-law, Paul Mickelson, was the music director there. He was also adhered to the Azuza Street Revival movement. Parousia, healings, outpouring of the Holy Spirit, intercession. He spoke of how God would lead him to maybe only one page or one paragraph of a whole book. Then his voracious reading of many forms of spiritual belief added a more universal concept in his teachings. All this became the primorial soup from which sprung The Living Word.

Chaos1952 Wrote:
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> I have been doing a little study of where John
> Robert Stevens actually got most of the message he
> taught. The message of the manifest sons of God
> is not anything that origionated with him. JRS
> could be classified as a radical Latter Rain
> adherent, in that he believed and taught the
> manifest sons of God message. If you trace down
> all the adherants of that theology, you will find
> a lot of this shepherding in the various
> fellowships. It seems to always evolve to the
> same thing. I don't know that it HAS TO, but it
> seems to, at least up until now. The belief that
> spiritual Gifts can be simply imparted to people
> that don't have very much depth of the word, and
> by "word," I mean the bible, and to people that
> have not sought God with all their heart, and gone
> through a work of the cross, and by "work of the
> cross," I don't mean standing in a circle and
> interceding for the leader, and speaking against a
> the devil, when the devil is no doubt perfectly
> content with what is going on and is no doubt not
> "coming against" anybody IN THAT particular
> fellowship.
>
> If you google Latter Rain and take a look at the
> various churches that espouse that theology, they
> ALL deny involvement, though most don't claim the
> God told them not to get involved. If God did
> tell John Stevens not to get involved with it,
> then I am at a loss as to why he did get involved,
> and to the point that he did.
>
> The moderator told me that we could discuss Latter
> Rain, as long as it is briefly and then to get
> back on subject. I am not going to say any more
> about it, other than to encourage all of you to
> google it, and then to research the prophetic
> movement, the apostolic restoration movement, the
> manifest sons of God, Joel's army, shepherding,
> the whole thing is out there, and it is has been
> going on since the late 1940s along with and right
> beside the Living Word Fellowship. It is nothing
> new.